Year: 2024
Medium: Graphic Novel
Class: ARC 494
Scope: Narrative Adaptation, Generative Imagery

A narrative adaptation of The Laughing Girls, a little-known story published by Oxygen House architect Douglas Darden. The original text mixes mythology and surrealism as part of a larger body of experimental work obsessively exploring laughter as an architectural phenomenon. Darden once recorded laughs, took X-rays, and even cast the inside of a womans throat, all while dying of cancer.

This version reimagines the story as a graphic novel set in a post-industrial Wild West. The girls become outlaw sisters from Troy, Kansas and their adventure to the West. The visuals borrow from classic Americana, blending pastoral landscapes with the industrial infrastructure that permeates Darden’s work. Railways cut through Zion, and oil rigs pierce the Senora Desert. The American frontier becomes a Dardenian sculpture, highlighting the good, the bad, and the ugly of it all.